


Goldenrod

by mangochi



Series: Last Watch [3]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Gift Giving, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 03:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15087956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangochi/pseuds/mangochi
Summary: When W’Kabi is six years old, his mother gives him his first blanket. It is a deep red, like the crimson sunsets after a storm, with stark white symbols marching around the borders.“And here,” she says, in a mock conspiratorial whisper, “this is just for you.” She points at a small white turtle in the corner, blocked out discreetly enough to pass for another symbol, and rubs her palm over his head. “My little turtle.”





	Goldenrod

**Author's Note:**

> Something I've been meaning to write for a while. There is art for this somewhere on the lovely @kolotwi's Twitter account so check it out if you have the chance.

When W’Kabi is six years old, his mother gives him his first blanket. It is a deep red, like the crimson sunsets after a storm, with stark white symbols marching around the borders.

“And here,” she says, in a mock conspiratorial whisper, “this is just for you.” She points at a small white turtle in the corner, blocked out discreetly enough to pass for another symbol, and rubs her palm over his head. “My little turtle.”

He wears it proudly, and the next day, she begins teaching him to make his own. “This is too big,” he complains, and she holds out the blue fabric, pretending to drape it over his head.

“You will grow with it,” she tells him. “You’ll be glad for it, when you become a rider.” She teaches him protection and longevity charms, marks them with chalk for him to stitch in the vibranium threads after her. They sit late into the night, beneath the comfortable glow of his bedside lamp, and she tells him of the blanket his father wove for her when they were wed, of the one she wore when W’Kabi grew in her belly.

“I’ll make one for you,” he promises her, “when I am big. So you won’t miss me when I'm gone.” She laughs and rubs a hand over his head, and he is happy.

***

In the heavy heat of summer, the bathhouse is a welcome reprieve from the outdoors. W’Kabi takes his time dressing afterwards, his skin still damp and soft from the steaming pools, the grime from the enclosures scraped away in the sweat rooms.

He feels Erik watching him today, a sharp weight lingering curiously on his movements, and he sighs, keeping his eyes on the straps of his bracers as he fastens them over his forearms. “What now?”

Erik blinks at him, slow and considering, and W’Kabi almost regrets acknowledging him at all. Like a rabbit, caught in the attention of a circling hawk. “It’s hot as hell out there.”

“It’s not so bad,” W’Kabi counters automatically. He wonders now if the baths have steamed the last remaining ounces of sense out of Erik’s head. He picks up his blanket, wraps it around his shoulders, and Erik makes a sound of utter exasperation.

“Isn’t that thing _hot,_ is all I’m saying.”

“You’re not saying anything,” W’Kabi snaps. Bast, but even after all this time, the man is still infuriating.

Erik gestures at W’Kabi’s entire body, and W’Kabi tries not to feel insulted. “Like, you and all the others. Could fry an egg out there and you’re all wrapped up like it’s fuckin’ Antarctica.”

W’Kabi frowns, disgruntled, and pulls his blanket tighter around himself. He tells himself he is not being defensive. “There is nothing wrong with it,” he says stiffly. “On festivals, we wear more than this.” Two blankets, sometimes three, the colors and patterns displayed proudly by men and women alike.

“Wild,” Erik says, already bored, and he turns away. W’Kabi glances at him as he does, taking in the thin work shirt stretched over Erik’s back, his silhouette clearly defined without the shielding bulk of a tribe blanket. An obvious outsider, to a stranger’s eyes. The thought leaves him oddly uneasy.

***

An invitation comes from the palace in the evening, a formally penned message from T’Challa himself. A private soiree, for the few ambassadors elected to tour Wakanda this month. They are doing it in turns, T’Challa told him once, the air between them less tense than W’Kabi expected. But T’Challa has never been one to hold grudges, and he forgives much faster than W’Kabi forgets. _Too soft_ , he thought once. He has yet to change his stance on the subject.

“Yo, we going to this?” Erik asks, his head hanging over the edge of W’Kabi’s bed as he views the invitation upside down. Their rooms in the barracks are smaller than those that W’Kabi previously resided in, but he supposes it is more than he expected to receive. This country, he thinks wryly, despite the vibranium running through her veins, has inherited all the softness of her king.

“I don’t know,” W’Kabi says truthfully. “Get your feet off my bed.”

Erik rolls easily up to a sitting position, swinging his legs down and around over the side of the bed. “Sounds like a buncha fuss for nothing,” he says. He tilts his head towards his shoulder and cracks his neck with an efficient jerk. “Just some big wig suits playing nice and eating fancy cheese and shit.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t, then,” W’Kabi says. “I’m lactose intolerant.” Erik looks at him, eyebrows lifting in surprise, and W’Kabi frowns. “A joke,” he says, already regretting the attempt. T’Challa used to laugh at his jokes; he supposes he should have realized it was a sign.

“I got nothing to wear for it, anyways,” Erik says, tossing the kimoyo bead back across the room. It snaps back into place on W’Kabi’s wrist, and he twists the beads around absently, feeling them slide smoothly over his skin.

“That could be arranged,” he hears himself say. There is a certain blanket, after all, hidden away in the depths of his closet. The wedding was small, private, and T’Challa wept through the entire thing. W’Kabi made the blanket red, to celebrate her new position as General, and Okoye squeezed his hand privately during the ceremony and told him it was beautiful.

Her blanket arrived at his cell in an unsigned package, three days after the battle, and W’Kabi tried to believe that he saw it coming.

***

The ballroom is one of the smaller ones in the palace, its tall wooden doors open to the night air and the wide balcony beyond, the doorway draped with gauzy silks and fresh flowers. W’Kabi hovers by the refreshments, clutching a glass of wine for fortification, and makes it a point to avoid any eye contact.

In the end, he doesn’t have to work too hard at it. T’Challa holds court effortlessly, the Jabari lord stiff and uncomfortable at his side. To W’Kabi’s surprise and unexpected annoyance, Erik seems to have abandoned his initial disdain for an alarmingly aggressive enthusiasm. W’Kabi can see him across the ballroom, scarlet blanket draped around him, his hands waving passionately as he interrogates the French ambassador.

Okoye’s blanket looks far better than it has any right to wrapped around his shoulders, and W’Kabi refuses to examine his own reactions to the realization. He drains his glass instead and crosses the room to the far side of the balcony, lowering himself onto the low stone railing.

The night air is cool and soothing, faintly perfumed with the scent of flowers. T’Challa has even managed to dig up an European classical chamber quartet, no doubt in an effort to make their guests at ease. W’Kabi finds the sound mildly grating, and he does his best to ignore their presence in the corner.

He manages it so well that he misses the sound of approaching footsteps until they stop by his side, and a familiar sigh recalls his attention.

“I didn’t expect you two to show,” Okoye says, settling onto the railing beside him. “This was never your kind of scene.”

“Okoye,” W’Kabi says, after a beat. He cannot deny that he is surprised; in the few times they have been in each other’s presence, their interactions have been politely distant, cauterized. More than the battle was lost, that day when he knelt before her on the plains.

“I didn’t think that you would keep it,” she says, never one to beat around the bush. She has always been more likely to stab straight through it. “Consider me surprised.”

“Are you angry?” W’Kabi asks, curious. Okoye’s anger is not foreign to him, but he finds himself wondering if it would sting any less than before.

Okoye lifts an eyebrow, ruthlessly and elegantly, and she looks back at Erik across the ballroom. Her fingernails are painted red for the occasion, to match the swirl of her gown and the wool tucked around Erik’s shoulders.

“No,” she says, after a moment’s thought. “I am only glad it is not languishing somewhere in the dark.” W’Kabi has always admired that steel in her, refined and immovable despite the fire beneath. She glances at him, lips quirked in a flash of amusement, and for a moment, he feels a lingering pang of regret. It sours the wine in his belly, and his hand tightens on his glass.

“Stay a while,” Okoye tells him. “It will make T’Challa happy.” She lifts a bottle effortlessly from the tray of a passing server and refills his glass. She keeps the bottle for herself. “Red isn’t his color,” she says, and she leaves him there on the balcony, his glass filled to the brim.

W’Kabi tells himself he should not watch her leave, and so he downs his glass and stares up dizzily at the stars instead.

***

“Fuck, you’re a lot heavier than you look.” The voice is familiar, slightly strained, just above his left ear. “Can’t say it’s the _best_ look, gettin’ wasted at the king’s party and all, but who’m I to judge, yeah?”

He’s being moved, W’Kabi realizes groggily, his feet stumbling clumsily over the ground and someone’s arm tight around his waist, dragging him along. There’s a hand around his wrist, his arm socket aching where a shoulder digs sharply into, and as Erik mutters a curse under his breath at a misstep, W’Kabi finally manages to crack open an eye.

He makes enough of a noise for Erik’s grip to tighten on him in surprise, then again in exasperation. “Hell, man! If you’re awake, walk by yourself. I ain’t an Uber.” Despite his complaints, he doesn’t let go of W’Kabi.

“Where,” W’Kabi mumbles, just as he recognizes the hallway of the barracks. His memory spanning the time spent between the soirée and their current location is blurred, at best. He thinks he vaguely recalls being herded aboard a transport, Erik’s hand firm on his back.

Erik props him up against his door, and W’Kabi fumbles for the bioscanner, slapping his palm clumsily at the pane until the door clicks open.

“Thought we agreed on not getting shitfaced,” Erik says above him. He almost sounds wounded, but W’Kabi is too dizzy to tell for certain. “You damn cheat.”

 _You had plenty of fun on your own_ , W’Kabi almost says. He grunts instead, in no shape to deal with whatever mood Erik’s gotten himself into, and manages a few steps before toppling facefirst onto his bed. The coolness of the sheets is a soothing balm on his pounding head, and he rubs his face into them with a low groan.

“Imma go now, ‘kay? Don’t puke, you’ll drown.” Erik’s silhouette lingers in the doorway, lifting a hand in farewell when W’Kabi turns his face to squint at him.

Red really _isn’t_ his color, W’Kabi thinks, with the last ounce of his consciousness.

***

W’Kabi frowns down at the rolls of wool at the market. A short distance away, he hears Erik haggling loudly over the price of bananas with a stout and unyielding grandmother, his voice rising in indignation.

There is a pale wheat fabric here, like the kiss of sunlight on the edge of the clouds, and W’Kabi turns it over in his hands contemplatively. Soft, but sturdy. Fit for the outdoors.

“I see you like that one,” says the vendor, leaning over conspiratorially. “For a sweetheart, is it?”

W’Kabi startles, nearly fumbling the roll he is inspecting, and he pulls a face as he settles it back on the rack. “Nothing like that,” he mutters. “I was only looking.” It’s true enough.

***

It is a perfectly logical thing to do, W’Kabi tells himself, as he stitches the blanket in the privacy of his own small quarters. It has been a year now, since they began their probation here, and Erik’s wardrobe has done the opposite but improve. T’Challa’s fault, W’Kabi suspects, for his overindulgence.

There is nothing odd about it at all, he thinks, as he carefully folds the completed blanket into a bundle and brushes his palms over it, his calluses catching on the soft fibers. It is better than the last blanket he made, he decides, despite being sorely out of practice.

The package lies at the bottom of his satchel for days, collecting significance with each passing hour. He means to hand it over quickly at first, to slap it against Erik’s chest with a mumbled excuse. He considers leaving it to be found, crammed into Erik’s bag while he is distracted at the canteen. In his most desperate of times, he considers foisting the task onto T’Challa.

In the end, because W’Kabi’s life has been nothing short of unfortunate, Erik digs the bundle out of his bag without warning during shift change, searching for a leftover ration bar that W’Kabi refused to share.

“What’s this?” Erik holds up the bundle, tugs it open quizzically, and W’Kabi resists the urge to slap it from his hands. This was a terrible idea, he realizes now. The blanket tumbles open before his eyes, pale gold like the sun-touched plains. Erik holds it up, shakes it out between them, and W’Kabi is suddenly, inexplicably nervous.

“If you’re going to fit in here,” W’Kabi says, as nonchalantly as he can manage, “you might as well dress like it.” He watches Erik’s eyebrows lift in confusion, then even higher in dawning comprehension.

“Oh _shit_ , man.” Erik throws the blanket around himself, tucking it in an unimpressive imitation of W’Kabi. “Yeah? Yeah? I make it _work_.” His grin softens his face, and W’Kabi finds himself reeling from it. It is not a feeling he is familiar with, and he takes a fortifying breath.

“Here,” he mutters. It’s a simple enough thing to step closer, keeping his eyes on his hands as he straightens the blanket, fussing with the folds until they lie correctly. “Like this. The way you wear it, people will think you are bearing your first child.”

“Why’s there gotta be so many rules with you people, huh?”

W’Kabi rolls his eyes, giving Erik’s blanket a sharper tug than necessary. “You say that as if you are not one of us yourself.”

Erik goes quiet at that, and W’Kabi wonders if he misspoke. It would not be the first time, and he clears his throat, readying himself to step away.

“How’s it look?” Erik suddenly murmurs, and W’Kabi stills. Erik’s breath is warm on W’Kabi’s cheek, and his voice, shockingly, carries a note of uncertainty. It sounds strange from him, a waver where there should only be bright, burning conviction.

 _Fine_. The response is on the tip of W’Kabi’s tongue, an automatic reply that would serve as well as any. He looks at his fingers, blunt and rough on the soft golden wool over Erik’s chest, and curls them awkwardly against his palms.

“It looks...right,” he finally says. He knocks a fist lightly against Erik’s sternum, the blanket softening the impact. “Don’t let it get to your head.”

Erik laughs, a surprisingly lighthearted sound. “Never,” he says. He sounds irrepressibly fond, and W’Kabi swallows, his mouth suddenly dry. Erik touches the blanket, rubs the fabric hesitantly between his fingertips, and looks like he is on the verge of uttering something dangerously close to words of gratitude.

W’Kabi clears his throat before he can do so. He turns his head on the pretense of coughing into his shoulder, taking the excuse to step away.

“Don’t look like a tourist anymore, do I?” There is something unexpectedly brittle in the way Erik plucks carefully at the hem of his blanket, looking down at himself in consideration.

W’Kabi watches him, brows pinching together, and finally sighs in realization. _Imbecile_ , he thinks, but it is a less cutting thought than it was before.

“This _is_ your home now,” W’Kabi says. “You do know that, right?”

Erik’s head jerks up, a startled cast to his expression, and he stares at W’Kabi for a long, unfathomable moment. W’Kabi looks back, shoving aside the instinct to cheapen the moment with an offhand dismissal, and, finally, Erik’s mouth lifts in a slow curve.

“Yeah, man,” Erik says. “Yeah, I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Send requests and yell with me on:  
> Tumblr @mangopuffs  
> Twitter: @_mangochi


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